The Redesign of Customer Experience in the Digital Age

Orienteering has become the new rage of outdoor sports and hiking.  It is a sport that requires navigational skills using the tools of an orienteering map and a compass to navigate from one point to another.  In the race against time, one wrong misread and heading in a different direction could put you out of the running. 

Many organizations today are in need of an orienteering map when it comes to customer experience.  The notion of creating positive and delightful customer experiences has been around for almost two decades now.  While customer experience initiatives have been put into place several years ago, recent fast paced evolution in customer interaction suggest it may be time to rethink and redesign customer experiences.  The advent of the Digital Age has produced many new potential forms of customer interactions that can be a contributor to a holistic customer experience.

Customer experience initiatives can no longer be static types of efforts.  Designing customer experiences in both B2C and B2B will most likely resemble the fluidity of orienteering.  Let’s take the introduction of the Apple iPad recently.  Such a digital device with its’ numerous available applications can enable an organization to enhance its customer experience immensely.  A friend who owns a salon recently outfitted all of her staff with the Apple iPad and it has radicalized her business almost immediately.  She is able to create a new customer experience for the salon’s clients such as showing different styles of cuts, product information, appointment setting, and other applications.

The Digital Age will undoubtedly be introducing new potential types of touch points for customers and buyers which will require companies today to be much more attentive to the dynamic enablers of customer experiences.  Enablers that will cause companies to undergo a redesign of existing customer experiences and to put into place fluid and dynamic experiences that can adapt well to rapid changes in customer behaviors.  Understanding an organization’s target set of digital buyer personas will become even more critical than ever.  Equally of importance is how this understanding leads to dynamic customer experiences that shape a company’s own brand persona.

While social media has become a significant factor in the Digital Age, some companies are running the risk of having tunnel vision about orienting their entire customer experience offering around social media.  Keeping a holistic and broader focused on customer experiences means helping customers to navigate from one touch point to another in ways that they are oriented.  Redesigning customer experiences and only offering one path for engagement can be a short sighted form of design.

As the Digital Age continues to evolve, so must organizations today in how they redesign customer experiences.  Failure to redesign could very well mean that customers will use their orienteering maps to navigate elsewhere to more favorable customer experiences. 

Image via Wikipedia